Lead Earthing and Bonding Engineer, High Speed Rail

Lead Earthing and Bonding Engineer, High Speed Rail

Our client is recruiting a Lead Earthing and Bonding Engineer to take technical ownership of the E&B discipline on one of the most complex railway infrastructure programmes ever built in the UK. This is a client-side role. Your day-to-day purpose is to set the standards that the supply chain works to, assure the design against those standards, and work through issues where the two do not align. The programme involves a high volume of physical and electromagnetic interfaces, both within the railway system and beyond it, and getting E&B right across all of them is essential to delivering a railway that is safe, compliant and operationally sound.

This role, will suit an engineer stepping up to this responsibility, as the rail systems progressives. To be effective, strong stakeholder skills, with communication will demonstrate in part the ability to look at the whole project, but perhaps manage the commission of technical expertise to support the project.
The role puts you at the centre of systems integration for the E&B discipline. You will develop the technical requirements and specifications that govern how earthing and bonding is designed and installed across the programme, and you will assure that the work delivered by professional services consultants and the wider supply chain meets those requirements. You will manage the caseload of technical issues that arise as design and construction progress, and you will draw on external specialist support to resolve them. You will not be expected to carry every problem yourself. The expectation is that you know when to bring in the right expertise, and that you manage that process effectively.

You will provide technical advice across the wider programme and to external stakeholders, work with colleagues in other engineering disciplines to ensure that E&B is considered as part of an integrated whole, and contribute to governance and peer review processes. Prior to contract award, the programme team holds responsibility for railway systems integration as civil design develops. That responsibility does not go away after contracts are placed. You will play an active part in making sure integration is maintained throughout.

The role can be based in London or Birmingham.

What you need to bring
Your background is in earthing and bonding engineering, and that background should include experience on major infrastructure programmes where multi-disciplinary complexity and competing technical demands were part of daily working life. A traction power background is relevant, as is a career that has developed through engineering consultancy into a client-side or technically accountable capacity. Either route can work for this role.

You will understand E&B in the context of the wider railway system, not as a self-contained discipline. That means a working knowledge of how earthing and bonding interfaces with power systems, electromagnetic compatibility, civil structures and operational requirements, and the ability to manage those interfaces across a live programme. Experience with BSEN 62305 is currently useful and will be considered favourably.

You will have managed competing technical and commercial demands on programmes where cost and schedule are live pressures. You will know how to engage stakeholders across a complex organisation, how to manage a portfolio of technical issues, and how to draw on specialist knowledge held by external professional suppliers to move those issues forward. A working knowledge of UK construction regulations including CDM and familiarity with the Common Safety Method for risk evaluation and assessment are expected. Chartered Engineer status or active membership of a relevant professional institution is expected, though equivalent experience will be considered.

Useful to have
Experience on programmes of comparable scale and ambition, particularly where your work has spanned the full lifecycle from requirements development and design through to construction assurance. A background that has given you exposure to more than one railway system or infrastructure context, so that you can apply standards critically and not simply by rote. Experience of value engineering and whole-life cost thinking on major programmes.